Legacy of Sand
by ashe-urbanipal
Summary: A woman has traveled all the way from the desert to track down a young man with a vendetta. A kid in green, though, seems to be after the same thing.


**Ch. 1**

It was hotter than Naroo expected. That was her thought the entire laborious trek across the sprawling Hyrule field, sweat dripping down into her loose pants and tunic, turning the bright red fabric into something brown and grungy. The desert was always hot, of course, but this was another kind of hell entirely. Everything was just so damn damp. The ground in the morning, the air at night. She wasn't used to it. The same draping clothes that protected her from sand and sun trapped moisture between their layers and clung eagerly to her skin. For almost a quarter of a century, she'd drawn the thin, fiery dragon air into her lungs and not been the worse the wear for it, but this humidity was utterly suffocating. The only thing that made it better was that she wasn't the only one suffering. Everyone who had come into this little bar had commented in droll tones about the unusual heat for so early in spring. These people in their stiff silk and lace probably didn't know what to do with themselves.

She pushed her hood back a little on her red hair and let the veil drop away from her bold umber nose to take a deeper draught of her drink. She was treading a fine line between masking her appearance and drawing suspicion. All the Gerudo were supposed to be dead, after all. Who knew what terrible fate would befall her should she be found out? The people of Castle Town were a dense bunch, however. Their eyes skipped over her like she wasn't even there. The bartender had barely even looked at her, accepting her scuffed up rupees blindly in exchange for a mug of tepid water. As fortunate as this was for her own movement through the crowded streets, she wondered if it would make her task that much harder.

Naroo was banking on the hope that a tall, muscular teenage boy from the desert would stand out among the small spindly Hylians. Perhaps he had actually followed through on his plan, already. If so, he was surely sitting in a dungeon below the castle at that very moment. It wasn't an ideal situation, but it was something she could work around. That was the advantage of coming from a long line of thieves-by-trade; locks were a rather easily solved problem. If he had somehow managed to hide in plain sight among their ranks, though, there was some arduous investigative work in front of her.

The door opened, and the chatter in the bar stopped for a solid thirty seconds, then resumed with renewed vigor almost all at once. Naroo turned gently toward the sound of a bar stool scraping the floor to her left.

It was a kid, a boy, fair-haired, probably only just fifteen. He hadn't hit his last growth spurt, yet, and his boots kicked at the underside of the bar a fair distance from the ground. In silence, he pulled some shiny rupees from a pouch on his belt and set them on the countertop. Without a word between them, the bartender brought him a glass of thick, creamy milk. The boy stared at it absently for a few seconds, then leaned forward to rest his head on the countertop. The boy was drawn, ragged, put-upon in a way that was altogether too much for him. He carried a sword and shield on his back that looked two times too big, and she recognized the scratches of rough hewn spears on the shiny metal.

 _Right, slaughter the Gerudo, but leave the moblins and bokoblins,_ she thought to herself miserably for a moment, then shook it off. This was not the time to dwell on things from fifty years ago that could not be changed.

The boy lifted his head again, rubbed his eyes with worn brown leather gauntlets, and downed the milk in one go, spilling a few drops on his dark green tunic. He brushed at it idly, and the gentle clink of chainmail rattled underneath his hand. Naroo peered at him sideways as he sat staring at the bar top tiredly. He shook his head, took a deep breath and set his shoulders against whatever internal thought process he was entertaining.

A map came out of another pocket, and he rolled it out in front of him. It was covered in marks, x's and o' and little heart shapes spread across the whole of Hyrule. He ran his fingers over a a few of the marks, then sighed. As subtly as she could manage, Naroo glanced over his arm at the map. There was a little tiny cross out in the desert that bothered her more than any of the others. At this scale it was hard to tell for sure, but the marking was suspiciously close to the old temple where the last remnants of her clan were living sequestered from the rest of the world. It might not mean anything. It might mean everything. But, for now, if it was just this boy with a strange map, things would be okay for the time being. There were more pressing matters to attend to in regard to their homestead being found out.

After some silent minutes, the boy re-rolled his map and tucked it away. He dropped to the floor from the barstool. Then he looked at her. For a solid second, he locked his pale blue eyes in her amber ones, blinked, then moved swiftly across the bar toward the door.

He was the first one who'd met her gaze the entire day in that dreadful town.

The stool clattered to the floor loudly as she slammed her sandaled feet down and dashed after the quickly retreating figure. She caught him just outside the door of the bar. He turned sharply when her hand came around his arm. There was nothing to him. He was so tiny under those tough, war-torn, clothes. Naroo let go quickly, afraid she had hurt him, but he hadn't flinched. He'd barely even reacted.

"Uh, hey kid, you got a second?" Naroo ventured. He answered with a sort of lilt to the side and a hard blink. Naroo pursed her lips then gently gestured him into the alley beside the bar.

"So, um, not to pry, but I noticed that map you had had a lot of markings on it," she began, having no idea where she was going with her line of questioning. She didn't even totally know why she had chased after him to begin with. Was it to ask about the "x" in the desert? Did she want to even draw attention to it?

He had pulled the map out, though, before she even finished talking and was proffering it to her.

"You wanna look?" he said quietly but firmly. Naroo took it from him hesitantly and unfurled it. On closer inspection, there seemed to be an "x" in each major region of Hyrule. Lake Hylia, Zora's Domain, Death Mountain. The one in the forest had a little square around it. The circles were almost incomprehensible in their pattern, but then it didn't really matter if she understood, she supposed. She wasn't so concerned with the map itself as what the boy intended to do with it.

"Are these all the places you've visited or something?"

"No," he said.

"Oh. Where you're planning on going, then?"

"Yes."

"Heh. Wow, you're gonna be busy then." She tried to hide her uncertainty, but it came out in a little wavery breath. This was the exact thing she was worried about. What could this kid possibly want out in the desert? Who was he working for? What was the meaning?

"I have to find the remaining two Gems of Light, acquire the Sword of Legend, awaken the three Great Spirits from their slumber, and then I'll be able to defeat the Great Evil that has descended upon us." The boy divulged everything in one single, matter-of-fact breath. Naroo arched a narrow eyebrow at him, rolled the map carefully, and handed it back. It seemed she had nothing to worry about. This boy was either unwell or caught up in a very elaborate make-believe game. She didn't have time to deal with either. Still, he seemed more aware of his surroundings than the other city folk, and perhaps he could still be of use to her.

"Well, thanks for sharing. I was wondering, though, since you seem to be the traveling type, whether you might have seen a tall, muscular man dressed in black armor and carrying a pretty big sword? He looks like...well...he looks a little like me. We're from the same family." Naroo dropped her head coverings down to her shoulders to expose a square jaw, high cheekbones, and a thick braid that she brought over one of her broad shoulders.

"He would also be carrying something with this on it." She held up a satchel from her belt and pointed to the round, dragonfly-faced emblem of their people that had been stitched into it. The boy blanched stark white, all the color draining from his face in an instant. Then his eyebrows set into a dark expression. His hands clenched against themselves at his sides into tight little balls.

"Yes. And I'm going to kill him."


End file.
